The OkieLegacy

Castle On The Hill
1937 The Ranger Annual
Northwestern State Teachers' College

English Department

by - Milburn Beaman

Certain characteristics will invariably become associated with a department aged in the tradition the English Department is. Mr. Griffith's classes are locally famous for his lectures on Indiana and his incidental remarks about English. Miss Shockley's classes are renowned because of the oral reports given therein, and Miss Shockley can consider a personal triumph some dating regulations she allegedly authored some years ago.

Mr. Halstead, a comparatively new addition to the faculty, has definitely impressed us with his absences; he has been away to some western college pursuing higher learning. Mrs. Halstead with the moral support of a bulldog has graciously filled his place in the department. Miss Rodgers, the physical education instructress, has taken a freshman English class in hand. I am entertaining a sneaking suspicion that she literally aches to turn the class into a gymnasium and give an "A" to the persons who improve their posture the most during the semester.

Now may this writer offer his humble appology. He has succumbed to the wrteched human weakness of giving first place to harmless discrepancies which are outweighed a thousand times by qualities and virtues which characterize the various English teachers. It is enough to say they have sustained at Northwestern an art that has borne the attacks of cynicism, pragmatism, and science. Perhaps my last statement should be qualified and even justified, but it would lead to a justification of literature. Literature needs about as much justification as does the love of a mother for her baby. It has been, and will continue being, the voice of every higher human emotion, and has been glorified by its derogatory foes.

If we consider all things, we can only say our English Department cannot be improved upon. One has but to listen to Mr. Griffith's lectures to realize their weight and relation to a general understanding of English. His lectures have unity and clarity of phrasing, that I, who am only too eager to criticize, can never hope to equal. While I must confess some of Miss Shockley's dating regulations have been surreptiously disobeyed, I believe they have done a good deal in encouraging morals in our college. Mr. Halstead will return better fitted for his position, but we will miss his dog. Miss Rodgers can acquit herself admirably well in her English class, and she might suggest that I let my "sneaking suspicious" dwindle into the nothingless from whence they emanated.

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